1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cooling system, and more particularly, to an apparatus for compulsorily supplying a cooling fluid or coolant, such as water, fluorocarbon liquid, or the like, for circulation through a plurality of cooling modules for cooling electronic components, such as integrated circuits (IC's), large-scale integrated circuits (LSI's), or the like, mounted on printed circuit boards for computers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic components, such as IC's, LSI's, or the like, are now very highly sophisticated, and thus the density of such electronic components that can be mounted on a printed circuit board has increased. Accordingly, it has become very important to effectively cool these electronic components, since the amount of heat generated therefrom has correspondingly increased, and thus various compulsory cooling systems using a cooling media having a strong cooling capacity have been proposed.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,393 discloses a modular cooling system in which a plurality of modular cooling chambers are connected in series, each having a flat heat conductive side which can be attached to a flat backplate of an electronic module, to provide a good heat conduction to a cooling fluid circulating in the cooling chambers. Flexible conduits are connected between the outlet and inlet of the successive series-connected cooling chambers, so that the chambers can be attached to electronic modules of different heights and can be easily detached from the backplate without interrupting the coolant fluid flow therethrough, to enable the underlying electronic module to be tested, repaired or replaced without affecting the cooling of other modules in the series.
In this prior art, however, only a single supply system including a pump and a heat exchanger is provided for the plurality of modular cooling chambers, and therefore, such a coolant supplying system must be provided with a pressure or flow capacity sufficient to cover all of the modular chambers, even if the number of such chambers is increased. Also, it is impossible to adjust the pressure and temperature of the coolant to suit individual modular chambers.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,512,582 discloses an immersion cooling system for modularly packaged components, wherein a plurality of modular units are connected to a vessel containing a low-boiling-point liquid, so that an auxiliary cooling chamber of each modular unit is filled with the low-boiling point liquid. Each auxiliary chamber contains heat generating components which are cooled by the low-boiling-point liquid in which a nucleate boiling takes place, and a separate heat exchanger located in each auxiliary chamber removes the heat from the low-boiling-point liquid. The vessel provides a common venting and degassing of, and a pressure for, the individual cooling chambers.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,774,677 discloses a cooling system in which a spare condensing and cooling arrangement is provided in a liquid cooling system to condense vapors generated by nucleate boiling at a heat source. A two-phase flow is caused between the heat source, in the form of liquid and boiling vapors, and the spray condensing and cooling means, where the vapors are condensed by a cooler spray contained therein. The amount of spray, and accordingly the amount of vapor condensation, is controlled by a servo arrangement which regulates the pressure within the system.